“Re:Work,” a weekly radio show produced by the UCLA Labor Center to highlight the stories of workers in America, has won a national Gracie Award for Outstanding Portrait/Biography in the category for local, public and student radio and television.
“Re:Work,” which trains UCLA students and community members in the storytelling process and radio production, is currently the only radio show in the country that focuses on work. The 30-minute episodes air weekly at 6:30 p.m. on Fridays on KPFK, the Southern California Pacifica affiliate. The shows also air online through iTunes and Stitcher.
Established in 1975 to honor outstanding programming by, for and about women, the Gracies are awarded annually by the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation. Among this year’s 69 winners in the same category were Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, the Village Voice, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and WNYC/New York Public Radio. This year’s Gracie awardees also included Cicely Tyson, Julia Roberts, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Olivia Munn and Mae Whitman.
“We are honored to receive this Gracie, which honors Pati Garcia’s incredible story,” said Stefanie Ritoper, Re:Work executive producer and communications director for the UCLA Labor Center. Ritoper and Saba Waheed, co-producer on the shows, were in New York Monday to receive the award. “We believe that stories from workers who don’t often make it into the spotlight have great power and can change the future of work.”
To produce the shows, the labor center has received support from other community organizations. For the latest episode, on L.A.’s garment district workers, Cal Humanities provided funding, and the labor center worked with the Garment Worker Center to collect worker stories, Ritoper said. This past weekend, Ritoper and Waheed led a workshop about radio storytelling at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit with Mar Martinez of the Garment Worker Center.
The winning segment, “Baby’s Bodyguard,” follows Pati Garcia, a doula who supports pregnant mothers and has witnessed some 70 births. The story paints a portrait of her rebellious career and her complicated and deeply personal relationship with the medical system.
You can listen to “Baby’s Bodyguard” and past episodes of “Re-Work” at www.reworkradio.org.
